The Rings
by WhisperArtist
Summary: Jessica Rose and her brother Dallas had their parents' wedding rings as long as she could remember, but she didn't quite know when they started to mean so much.


**A/N: I've never posted any of my writing before so I hope you like it!**

**Spoilers for the end of The Outsiders.**

**Jessica Rose is Dally's younger twin sister.**

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Jessica Rose didn't have much to her name. The Winston family didn't have much in both value and sentiment, but Jessia Rose and Dallas had their rings. Two bands of solid gold that shone in the Tulsa sunlight and were rarely on their owner's hands. Dally's went back and forth, on and off, but JR's rarely returned

Dally had their father's wedding band. The man was terrible and deserved to burn in the hottest parts of hell, and when they finally left Dally refused to let him keep the memory of the women he had betrayed. He stole it quicker than anything else he had taken and they left, never to be seen again. For years it stayed on his hand, but then it had gone missing only a few months after coming to Tulsa. It didn't take long to learn that he had given it to a girl as a promise. That was new so JR never questioned it even when it would reappear only to disappear less than 24 hours later. She was mildly surprised to see Sylvia wearing the ring, but she couldn't think of anyone better for Dally to give it too. She had never seen Dallas love a girl that much.

Jessica Rose was more protective of her ring. Their mother's wedding band, thicker than average, less feminine for a less feminine woman, had spent far more than a few years on her hand. Their mother's engagement ring had been lost when she died, but the band was saved. Their father never cared about it other than the time he thought about pawning it, to which JR through a huge fit. She took it from her mother's old jewelry box that night to make sure that would never happen. She wore it long after Dally had given his away, until one night watching her brother ride in the rodeo. The night Tim Shepard had looked at her with the sincerest eyes and told him that he loved her. It wasn't like those times he was joking around to make her blush, he meant it. She made him swear to be her's and gave him the ring. He never took it off. Not once did she see him without it after that day.

After Dallas died, things changed. Sylvia gave the ring back. JR had protested and fought, but she refused to keep it. She said she wasn't worthy of it since she didn't love him enough for him to stay. JR broke hearing that. She couldn't force Sylvia to keep it after that; after seeing how much pain keeping it would cause. JR wore it on her left ring finger instead, warding off any man who thought they might get a chance with her once she left because she refused to let Tim give her ring back. He swore to be her's, and she wouldn't let him break that promise, so help her. Tim would never break a promise, so the ring stayed, preventing any brave girl from trying something just like before she left.

Then JR was back. Home in Tusla where she belonged, joking with her brothers and loving life again in the place she had learned to love life in the first place. Every last one of them stayed in their run-down town as she expected. Steve and Soda owed their own shop, making good money and still having the same fun. Two-Bit hadn't changed at all, but he was working part-time at Steve and Soda's shop and part-time at Buck's. Pony's book was a hit, making more money than any of them actually knew what to really do with. That is until Darry made up his mind and went to college. JR had never been prouder of the man.

Then there was Tim. He had been waiting for her, of course. He hadn't changed, even five years later. Still a smartass and an asshole, but a good man. A good, hardworking man that hadn't been arrested since she left. He had worked hard to get Angela through college and Curly out of jail. Maybe he did change, but the core of him was the same. He was still Tim Shepard, the leader of the Shepard Gang, a con and a hood, but a good man, who had such a violent love-hate relationship with her brother, but loved her unconditionally. Loved her enough to replace Dally's ring, her father's old wedding band, with a (fake) diamond engagement ring within hours of her returning to town.

It looked nice paired with her brother's ring, connecting her past and her present. Connecting her late brother to the wedding he would never get to witness. The wedding in which he wouldn't be Tim's best man (he had none) or walk her down the aisle (Darry took that honor with tears). The wedding he would never admit aloud that he approved of because this was his _arch-rival_ his baby sister was marrying.

Those rings that had meant so little to the people that were supposed to own them, meant the whole world to the people that took them on. They were a promise, a confession of love, and a connection as they passed from one owner to another, finding their homes with the people their true owners loved most in the world. From a lover to a sister to a husband, they were well traveled and well worn, but loved more than words could ever express.


End file.
